I'm trying to write a short fic for X-Men wherein the main character is fighting in WWI (this is Logan aka Wolverine, for those of you who know X-Men). Logan is Canadian, born in late 1893, and would have been called up with other Canadian troops to fight (he'd have been 20 when the war began). I've been poring over the Wikipedia articles on WWI and related battles, etc., but I'm having a hard time really grasping it all.
I'm trying to give a feel for what the battle was actually like as the soldiers are fighting--I'm assuming he'd likely be in a regiment with other Canadian soldiers, but would they be ones from his local area, or just from the general province/region? Note that he's Sir James Logan Howlett--what does that mean in terms of his being a soldier? Is he automatically an officer of some sort, or just an ordinary soldier? Does he get some sort of special privileges for it?
What would be the actions? Are they standing up, crouching, moving around? Would they be ducking periodically or do they stay down all the time? I know it was a trench war, but beyond that I don't really understand how it all worked.
What sorts of guns were they using and how did they work? What did they have to do to fire them? Reload? What did they sound like when fired?
And beyond that, what sort of slang would they have used in Canada then? I've done some searching, but mostly come up with either Australian or British. Granted, I suspect British and Canadian slang would have some commonalities back then, as before the war Canada was just part of the Dominion, but I still don't want to assume everything was and make my character a British guy who's supposed to be Canadian, lol. Basically, if I have him say "knock it off" or "shut up", am I introducing anachronisms?
Any help with any one of these questions (whether an answer or a recommended website to check out) would be greatly appreciated!
For X-Men fans:
See, I'm thinking of writing a series of "manifestation" fics wherein each main character in X-Men discovers their mutation. We only know a few of those events (Erik/Magneto's is shown first thing in the first X-Men movie, and Rogue's after that, but we never see anyone else's, much less hear about them). Although comic canon does describe a few, I think it would be interesting to write a fic for each of them, kind of bringing a background to life. I decided to start with the oldest mutant, who I've decided is definitely Logan.
Beyond this, I've been working on a long fic set post-X2, but that one's stalled until I can find an X-Men fan who knows canon really well so I can dialogue with them and figure out the politics and general world and all that.
